Manning, Kansas Stun Oklahoma

April 05, 1988|By Robert Markus, Chicago Tribune.

KANSAS CITY, MO. — Will miracles never cease? Not, apparently, as long as there is an NCAA Final Four.

For the third time in six years, a heavy underdog won the national collegiate basketball championship when Kansas stunned Oklahoma 83-79 Monday night, avenging two early-season defeats. The Jayhawks joined North Carolina

(1983) and Villanova (1985) as Cinderella titlists.

Once again it was Danny Manning, the tournament`s most valuable player, carrying the Jayhawks on his back. He has done it all season, but this time the 6-foot-10-inch senior carried them all the way to the top.

``I knew he wanted it bad,`` said Oklahoma center Stacey King, ``and he came out here tonight and proved he wanted it bad.``

Manning scored a game-high 31 points, including four straight free throws in the final 14 seconds that ended any chance of an Oklahoma comeback.

But if Manning was the man for Kansas, it was no one-man team that won the national title.

``You might have been able to say that earlier,`` said Sooners forward Harvey Grant, ``but since they`ve gotten to the NCAAs, everybody has been contributing.``

There were clutch performances from the likes of Kevin Pritchard, Chris Piper and Milt Newton as the Jayhawks (27-11) became the first team in tournament history to win the title with more than 10 defeats.

Newton had 15 points, Pritchard 13 and Piper, although he scored only 8 points, had two vital baskets. The first came after Oklahoma had opened its biggest lead of the night, 65-60, early in the second half.

Kansas, which had come out with all guns blazing, appeared to be buckling at last as the Sooners ran off eight straight points to erase a 60-57 deficit. Then Piper hit a 15-foot jumper to stem the flow and Manning tied the game with a three-point play.

Later, with a 75-71 lead, the Jayhawks ran the shot clock down almost to zero before Piper fired in a baseline jumper with 3:03 left. That 77-71 lead was the biggest for either team all night.

Piper also contributed to a strangling interior defense that limited King and Grant, the Sooners` twin towers, to a single basket over the final 12 minutes. ``Chris Piper worked hard to deny me the ball,`` said King, ``and when I did get open, Manning came over to help out. It was probably the toughest defense inside we saw all year. We just didn`t get the shots we usually get.``

``It`s a credit to Larry Brown`s coaching,`` said Grant. ``He`s watched a lot of film and knows how Stacey and I like to post up. Sometimes I felt I was getting the ball eight or nine feet from the basket, and that`s frustrating.`` Oklahoma had a chance to get back into it when the Jayhawks started missing free throws in the final two minutes, but with 16 seconds to go and Kansas leading 78-77, Scooter Barry hit the front end of a one-and-one.

He missed the second, but Manning grabbed the rebound and was fouled, making both his free throws to make it 81-77.

The indomitable Sooners came right back when Ricky Grace twisted through the lane for a layup, but Manning was fouled with five seconds to play and made both his free throws.

Oklahoma, which finished 35-4, was led by Dave Sieger`s 22 points, but the sharp-shooting forward turned cold in the second half after scoring 18 points in the first half, all on 3-pointers.

``It was a combination of their denying me the ball and when I did get it they were right up on me,`` said Sieger.

Manning had an astounding 18 rebounds, 5 steals and 2 blocked shots in leading Kansas to its second national title and its first since 1952.

A critical block came with 5:20 to play and Kansas ahead 73-71. Manning not only went up with King and rejected his shot but then scored on the other end on a driving layup as well.

The Jayhawks started at a blistering pace, hitting 9 of their first 10 shots. The only miss, by Manning, was put back up and in by Piper.

They extended the hot streak through most of the half, hitting 17 of their first 20, from inside and outside alike, but with Sieger shooting like a siege gun and making his six 3-pointers, all the Jayhawks got out of it was a 50-50 tie. It was the highest-scoring half in championship game history.

``I was trying hard to hold the tempo down,`` said Kansas coach Brown,

``but the kids had the shots and felt comfortable with them. We wanted to shorten the game and couldn`t do it. We were all concerned that we couldn`t slow ourselves down.

``We got control of the tempo in the second half, had some phenomenal defensive performances and didn`t panic when we got down five points.``

Every time his team came over to the sidelines, Brown would tell them:

``Just get into the last five minutes. They`ve never been there before.``